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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
The problems created by rapid expansion of educational systems in the underdeveloped states of Asia, Africa and South America are the subject of a large and diverse literature.1 Familiar to even the most cursory student of this literature are several themes: (1) the ‘devaluation’ of elementary education, which no longer affords entry into white-collar positions as it did in the late colonial periods; (2) the persistent and diffuse ‘elite’ connotations of higher (and even secondary) education, the supply of which, while increasing, remains relatively short; (3) the skewed distribution, within higher education, toward ‘traditional’ disciplines—notably law and the humanities—reflecting the values of the colonial system and running against perceived needs for technological skills; and finally, the concern over the ‘destabilizing’ consequences of a growth in educational access and aspirations disproportionate to the economy's ability to ‘fit’ much of tne-educated-manpower into the system.
1 See, e.g., Coleman, James S., ed., Education and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965);Google ScholarAnderson, C. Arnold and Bowman, Mary Jean, eds., Education and Economic Development (Chicago: Aldine, 1965).Google Scholar
2 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era (New York: Viking, 1970), p. 41.Google Scholar
3 For some pertinent comments on this issue, see Hoselitz, Bert F, ‘Investment in Education and Its Political Impact’, in Coleman, , ed., Education and Political Development, pp. 547–8.Google Scholar
4 Ken, Malcolm H., ‘Egypt’, in Coleman, , ed., Education and Political Development, p. 187.Google Scholar
5 As Zeman, Z. A. B. notes in his ‘popular’ but persuasive small work, Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (New York: American Heritage Press, 1971), p. 43, while the Austrian section of the Empire introduced universal suffrage for males over 24 years old in 1906, Budapest imposed on its half in 1907 an ‘Agricultural Laborers Act’ which was aimed at checking the outflow of peasants from their impoverished lands, and tying them more closely to their landlords: suffrage, of course, was not part of this picture.Google Scholar
6 Lidové noviny, April 27, 1951,Google Scholar as quoted in Taborsky, Edward, Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1960 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Expansion of education institutions could scarcely have led, of course, to any result other than ‘democratization’. The small upper and middle classes of Tsarist Russia were served well by foreign and domestic educational institutions: any large increase in the number of institutions could only imply the enrollment of numerous youth of ‘toiler’ background, who made up the vast majority of the age-eligible population.
8 Much of the contemporary data for the remainder of this paper is drawn from reports from the research division of Radio Free Europe, which remains as ever an indispensable aid to the researcher interested in the area. Most of the citations to domestic newspaper and journal sources are taken from a recent series of reports on higher education in the socialist states (see below); in the interests of brevity in the notes, those citations which are taken from reports in this series are not identified as such, except by the lack of any reference to this series of Radio Free Europe reports. Any other secondary citations, whether to RFE reports or other sources, are identified.
See: ‘Higher Education in Bulgaria’ (November 9,1972); ‘Higher Education in Yugoslavia’ (December 22, 1972); ‘Higher Education in Hungary’ (January 10, 1973); ‘Higher Education in Poland’ (January 2, 1973); ‘Albanian Higher Education’ (November 6, 1972); ‘Higher Education in the GDR’ (January 29, 1973); ‘Higher Education in Rumania’ (December 19, 1972); ‘Higher Education in Czechoslovakia’ (December 21, 1972); and the summary report ’Education in Eastern Europe: Progress, Problems, and Prospects’ (March 9, 1973).
10 Sarapata, Adam, ‘Stratification and Social Mobility in Poland’, in Empirical Sociology in Poland (Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1966), p. 46.Google Scholar
10 Juhász, Júlia, ‘Secondary Education of Working Class Children’, New Hungarian Quarterly, XI, 39 (Autumn 1970), p. 130.Google Scholar
11 tatistical Yearbook, 1949–1955 (Budapest: Central Statistical Office, 1957), p. 333.Google Scholar
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18 See the various compendia cited in RFE report, ‘Higher Education in Poland’ (January 2, 1973), p. 13.Google Scholar
19 Partien zhivot, No. 3, 1971;Google ScholarNarodna mladezh, January 7, 1968.Google Scholar
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21 Handbuch der DDR (1964), p. 686; also Radio GDR I Broadcast, December 31, 1972.Google Scholar
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23 ‘Now that education has become a mass phenomenon, a secondary or even a university education has ceased to be regarded as anything exceptional.’ Stefan Nowakowski, ‘Egalitarian Tendencies and the New Social Hierarchy in an Industrial-Urban Community in the Western Territories’, Polish Sociological Bulletin, No. 2, 1964, p. 77. While one may disagree with Nowakowski over whether university education is ‘exceptional’, certainly secondary education is no longer a special accomplishment.Google Scholar
24 See Rudé pràvo, February 19, 1970, as cited in ABSEES, July 1970, p. 150;Google ScholarRudé právo, April 8, 1971, as cited in ABSEES, July 1971, pp. 166–7;Google ScholarSvet práce, December 29, 1971, p. 2, as cited in ABSEES, April 1972, p. 152.Google Scholar
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31 Shubkin, V. N., Sotsiologicheskie opyty (Moscow: Mysl', 1970), p. 228.Google Scholar See also Sas, Judit H., ‘Expectations From and Demands Made Upon Children in a Rural Community’, in Hungarian Sociological Studies (op. cit., n. 26).Google Scholar
32 See Kolankiewicz, George, ‘The Working Class’, in Lane, David and Kolankiewicz, George, eds., Social Groups in Polish Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 128;Google ScholarKrejěi, Jaroslav, Social Change and Stratification in Postwar Czechoslovakia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 87.Google Scholar
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38 In this, the East European experience is similar to that of the U.S.S.R. earlier: upward social mobility into nonmanual jobs by the offspring of workers and peasants was common, and no doubt education played an important role in promoting this mobility. But there is no evidence that this process resulted in downward mobility for any large share of those born into white-collar backgrounds. See Feldmesser, Robert A., ‘The Persistence of Status Advantages in Soviet Russia’, American Journal of Sociology LIX, 1 (07 1953), pp. 19–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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44 Ibid.
45 Secomski, Kazimierz, ‘Economic Development and Social Progress’, Polish Perspectives 12, 6–7 (1969), p. 31.Google Scholar
46 See Fiszman, , ‘Education and Social Mobility’, pp. 23–4,Google Scholar and by the same author, Revolution and Tradition in People's Poland: Education and Socialization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 271.Google Scholar
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49 Ibid., p. 103.
50 Magyar hirlap, September 5, 1972, p. 2,Google Scholar as cited in ABSEES, January 1973, p. 204.Google Scholar
51 Nepszava, December 10, 1972 ( R F E Hungarian Press Survey, January 24, 1973).Google Scholar
52 Scanteia tineretului, February 20, 1971.Google Scholar
53 Nepszabadsag, September 8, 1972.Google Scholar
54 Viata studenteasca, October 18, 1972.Google Scholar
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57 Magyar hirlap, February 18, 1972, p. 3Google Scholar as cited in ABSEES, July 1972, p. 205.Google Scholar
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62 Slowo powszechne, January 14, 1972; September 29, 1972.Google Scholar
63 How long they will serve this end is another question. Though its level of economic development is comparatively high, Czechoslovakia like the other socialist states needs more highly trained personnel, and demand for university education continues to run high.
64 Pravda, May 10, 1972.Google Scholar
65 Scanteia, July 22, 1972.Google Scholar
66 Viata studenteasca, October 25, 1972.Google Scholar
67 The author's own experience at Moscow State University, where students in law and other non-science faculties often agreed that their courses were ‘easier’ than those of science students (and also frequently admitted that they would have preferred a science faculty, had they thought admission likely) tend to add some confirmation to this.
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73 See Brzezinski, Zbigniew, ‘The Soviet Past and Future’, Encounter, March 1970, pp. 11–12, and sources cited therein.Google Scholar
